Get started

From sign-up to a working agent

Five steps, about five minutes. You finish with an AI agent in your terminal that runs on any model your key reaches — and the same key works in the SDKs and your own apps.

1. Create your account

Sign up with Google or email. Signing up with email? Click the link we send you — the in-browser assistant needs a verified address.

Create your account →

2. Add credits

In Dashboard → Billing, buy a pack — from $5. Each credit is $1 of usage, every call is charged at the provider's rate plus 25%, and the exact cost comes back with every response.

See pricing →

3. Create a key

Dashboard → Keys → Create key. Copy it straight away: it is shown once. Leave the endpoint scope empty, or include chat and models, so the agent can use it. You can add a spend cap, a rate limit and an expiry.

Open Keys →

4. Install baton

One command. The installer checks the download's checksum and our signature before it installs anything.

curl -fsSL https://quantumencoding.io/install.sh | sh

Builds for macOS (Apple silicon, macOS 14+), Linux (x86_64, Debian 11+ / Ubuntu 20.04+) and Windows (x86_64). Prefer a package? Download the .pkg, .deb or .exe from quantumencoding.io.

5. Run the agent

Set your key and start the TUI. Or skip the key entirely: start it and type /login to sign in with your account.

export QAI_API_KEY=qai_k_your_key
baton tui

Inside: /model picks a model, /doctor checks your setup. Ask it to read a repo, fix a bug or write a script.

Also with your key

baton makes images, video, music and speech from the command line, on the same credits. Building your own app? The SDKs take the same key.

baton qai image "a lighthouse at dusk, film photo"
baton qai speech "Welcome to Quantum Encoding"
baton qai chat "Summarise this" < notes.md

SDKs for six languages →

If something's off

· 401 Unauthorized — the key is wrong, revoked or expired. Create a new one in Keys.
· 402 Payment required — your balance is empty. Top up in Billing.
· 403 on chat — the key's endpoint scope leaves out chat. Create an unscoped key for the agent.
· Anything else — run /doctor in the TUI, or contact support.